The geographic location of a user of a network and the network sites that a user may visit or reference have become increasingly important information for Internet Service Providers, Portals and Search Engines, particularly for Internet-based services where advertisers which to send content which is relevant, i.e. local to the user.
One attempt to deliver local-based content revolves around the mapping of a user's IP address to a geographic locality, this information being derived from the global distribution of International Phase addresses by the Internet Standards Governing Bodies (RIPE, ARIN, LAPNIC, APNIC) and the same for the processed for distribution by other commercial entities. Thus, even though a user is accessing a global Internet site, the IP address will signify to the site being visited the geographic location of the user to enable delivery of content local to the user. The geographical location information obtained from standards bodies and commercial vendors maps down to country level with reasonable confidence level, while location down to city level is available, but of variable quality and reliability.
Local content that might be delivered to a user of known location includes listing of services and/or product providers, information such as entertainment, local news, advertising, weather, traffic information and the like.